Fury E3 View

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One of this year's surprises, Auran's competitive online RPG with instant action, a fast pace and diverse game types

By Richard Aihoshi - 'Jonric'

Auran's Fury is an online-only competitive RPG announced at this year's show. Players are members of the Chosen, heroes who have experienced many lives and innumerable wars. Their world has splintered into pieces, separate domains that float within a void, each seeking dominion over the others in order to guarantee its own survival. Battles take place in instanced War Zones.

Commendations Rather than a character class system, the team has incorporated incarnations, which are different combinations of abilities and equipment. Together with every avatar being able to learn any skill and wear any item, this should make it easy to switch among a variety of play styles as you deem appropriate. The advancement scheme is also unusual and interesting. You gain power by recovering lost memories. Doing so requires completing related quest-like tasks within the PvP scenarios. Rank is based on the number unlocked, not on levels gained by accumulating experience points. Combat includes a meta-layer based on building up elemental charges that should enhance the strategic element. There will be four modes ranging from solo free for alls to small-, medium- and large-scale group encounters. The pace is on the quick side but seems manageable for most players. The graphics appear to be very competitive.

Reservations No matter how good the underlying concepts may seem, it's always difficult to assess how well features and systems that are out of the ordinary will actually work or be accepted. There are players who have no interest in PvP-based games of any kind. The title's exposure plan is uncertain, partly because a publication deal has yet to be signed.

ConsiderationsFury made a very positive impression and may have stood out even more because there were no expectations in place. Unless you absolutely hate PvP, the game is certainly worth watching over the coming months.

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[E3 Views are intended to provide our current impressions. They may be based on information from interviews, demos, presentations, announcements et al, and limited or no playing time. - Ed.]